Vicissitudes of obtaining her home in the Belmont neighborhood
In this lengthy passage, English describes her quest for homeownership and the pitfalls she faced. She depicts the tensions between her and the city, neighborhood drug dealers, and the police. While English managed to upturn the city's typically harsh code violations to preserve her home, to swindle drug dealers of money, and to garner the police's attention in her notoriously crime-ridden neighborhood, she still faced hardships. The city's code violations cost her heaps of money in repairs; the drug dealers created the perception of her home as a drug hot-spot; and the police subsequently ignored her complaints arguing that she contributed to the drug-infested atmosphere in the neighborhood. These experiences heightened English's distrust of the city, but also increased her activism in the community.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Diane English, May 19, 2006. Interview U-0183. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- SARAH THUESEN:
-
What made you decide to move to Belmont in '93? I should back
up and say where were you living before that?
- DIANE ENGLISH:
-
I lived over in Honduras off of Sugar Creek. Honduras Apartments. I was
living over there. I knew the lady here because my daughter had a son by
her son. Her son used to get in a lot of trouble. One particular night
she called, the lady called and she had a lot of homes in this area. She
had bought up—her father had purchased, I think they had
several homes in the neighborhood at that time. During the time that the
city came through and they coded her homes really bad. They took a few
of them I believe. She only had two left when I came into the picture in
1993. That was this one and she had another one up on Parson Street. At
that time, she had to either fix it or the city was going to demolish
it, this particular home and the one up on Parson. This home was paid
for. It was vacant. The drug dealers used to hang out here. Then she had
this lady that was homeless that had asked her to live here because she
didn't have anywhere to stay. She told the lady the house
hadn't been remodeled. The house wasn't safe for a
family. This particular lady had kids. The lady agreed to pay her 250 a
month just to live here temporarily. She let her move in but she never
paid her the 250. She paid her whenever she could. That went on for
years, I think. Then in '93 is when the city came out and
started coding, code enforcement. The lady that was staying here
temporarily, after the city coded it, she had to move. She
didn't want to move. She went down and filed papers against
Blanch Perry as a bad landlord or whatever. She took her to court. Then
the city, well you got ninety days to either fix your house or
we're going to demolish it. During this time is when she had
a bad illness. She was real bad off sick. I told her if I could help her
let me know. She called and said, "Can you help me? They are
going to take my house." That's when I really became
deeply involved with this particular neighborhood because I
found—. I really went through the phone books and called
people that I knew to ask them questions about what could be done to
save the lady's house. They told me get
your code enforcement sheets. Tell them to get you a copy of all of your
code violations. That's when I went, me and my girlfriends,
then we got an attorney. I can't remember. It was a legal aid
person. We didn't go to see him. We just spoke to him by
phone. They said well you can look at your paper work. You can actually
tell whether or not it's a real problem. He said,
"Do you see anything like a dirty wall or a dirty
floor?" I'm like yeah. They got dirty wall. They got
dirty floor. They got dirty this. He said, "Well, all you do is
go in there and either wash it or either paint it. That will take it out
of code." I learned a lot from my friends and an attorney
friend that we were talking to by phone. We didn't have money
to pay him for services.
- SARAH THUESEN:
-
Was that Ted Fillette by any chance?
- DIANE ENGLISH:
-
Yeah. Mr. Fillette's been around for a while. We got the list.
We had to go out—. We had to get a mortgage on the house
because we didn't have enough funds to fix the house. This
particular family that was living her, she would not move. She stayed
here. She took the lady to court, back and forth to court. The judge
kept telling her no, no. She don't have to move. Then
that's when she decided well, maybe if—. You know,
she couldn't handle it anymore. She said well let me just
give you the house, then see what you can do with it to save It.
That's when I told her, "Fine with me." I
have no problem with putting this broad out. I used to send the Sheriff
over in the middle of the night to have her all, her and her family put
out in the middle of the night. Then we'd go to court and the
judge would just be going on and on, "Make her your
tenant." "No, I don't want her as a tenant.
I want her out of the house so I can fix the house so I can live
there." It took almost a year to get that woman out of the
house through the legal process. The legal process is bad for
homeowners. The people that own your property, a tenant can make it
rough for you. They can actually take your
property away from you by the laws. The judge won't put them
out, "Oh, let them stay there and let them pay you
$175 a week." If you can't pay 250 a month
how you going to pay me $175 a week? Come on, that's
enough. I said, "Naw." He really got frustrated with
me each time we went to court. He would tell me let them live. I would
say, "No, they can't live here." Finally,
in the end—I think about seven or eight months—the
city stepped in because the code enforcement. They were coming in and
out and coding everything. The city actually relocated this lady. She
was an old crack head, drug sellers, everything. Her kids used to sell
drugs and stuff. It went on like that for six months. After I got her
out, the house was basically a shell. It was demolished in the inside.
It was water dripping everywhere. The ceiling was rotted out. There was
no heat system in the house. There was no water, plumbing that actually
worked in the house. It was roaches swimming in the kitchen sink, stuck
on the walls with rats everywhere. It was terrible. It was horrible.
Then it was just like why would these people stay in such filth and then
I looked and I could understand why. This was all they knew. This was
all they knew about. It was pitiful because they lady had a younger
daughter and a younger son at that time and a boyfriend that she beat,
and he beat her. It was just awful for the kids.
- SARAH THUESEN:
-
Sounds like an awful situation.
- DIANE ENGLISH:
-
Yeah, it was. It was better when she got out. Then she went
to—. She moved from here to Dundeen which was ever worse.
Dundeen over there off of Beatties Ford Road.
- SARAH THUESEN:
-
Is that a neighborhood?
- DIANE ENGLISH:
-
That's a street and a neighborhood over there off of Beatties
Ford Road. She just—. This particular lady is just ghetto, is
what I call them. She's just bang, bang, shoot them up,
fight, fight, drink, drink. Those are the kind of people I call ghetto.
They don't know any other life other
than just ghettoism is what I call it. They don't know how to
survive with a—doing other things outside of beating and
cursing and ranting and raving. They don't know any other
way. I don't if it's how they was brought up or if
this is just what you do when you live in a neighborhood like this. God,
it was awful. When I got this house it was terrible.
- SARAH THUESEN:
-
Did you have moments where you second guessed your decision to take this
house?
- DIANE ENGLISH:
-
I still have moments that I feel like I could have had this if I
hadn't of been here. I've put all my life savings,
every dime of my money, every dime that I've had saved or
would have had into this house. When this lady moved out the roof, I had
to have a new roof. It was five roofs up on top of this house. The city
made me take all that down. The walls had to be—. The walls
had holes in them. Of course you had to fix that. Then they
made—. Then what topped it off, what really got me, my back
door sits—. They made me move my back door from one corner of
my house to the other corner of my house.
- SARAH THUESEN:
-
Why was that?
- DIANE ENGLISH:
-
They never said. They just said the door was in the wrong place. They
made me move the whole back door. Then that means the wood
that—it's a wood house. It's made out
of wood, made out of redwood in fact. All of the houses in here is made
out of wood. In fact, when the wood was taken off the guy
couldn't put it back together. I had to go out and buy new
wood to fix the wall to look like the other wall.
- SARAH THUESEN:
-
How much of all this work did you do yourself?
- DIANE ENGLISH:
-
I ended up doing the majority of it. Me and my sisters and kids ended up
doing the majority of it, what we could in the inside. Now, the roof we
didn't touch. We had somebody that made
a mess, but anyway. We had that person. I had to get a plumber. During
the time that this lady got out of this house, the house was vacant. The
floors in here were like down hill, uphill. They had like run down,
rotted out. They were just—. You would walk in here and it
was like walking downhill. You walk over here it's like
walking uphill, all the way through the house. All the floors had to be
leveled. It was like the guy that was the contractor which was a city,
working for the city at that time. He tore out—. He was doing
the work and we gave him money. In fact, he got about $26,000.
Basically he didn't do anything. He would tell me that code
person say, "Yes it passed." Then I would see another
code person and they said, "No, I didn't say
this." By this time, all the monies was gone. That guy got
fired from the city. He was a contractor with the city. He got fired.
That still left me holding the gun with work to be done. I just got in
here, me and my sister. During that time I was at CATS. I would come
home from work and work on the house, go back to my other house that I
was living in. This was vacant and I lived over on Honduras. I would
come over here on my days off and work all day to the middle of the
night until finally it was just a shell. It didn't have
any—. The heat was good because I had to have a heating
system put in which was too small. It's sitting out on my
front porch, on the side over here. I paid $2500 for a unit
that was too small. Code enforcement said it was too small. I had to end
up going back to get another unit. This time the guy said
let's just get central air while you at it. I said whatever.
That's how I ended up with central air. I wouldn't
have had central air either. It's just been one thing after
another. I fix this, something else breaks down. It's just
like the house is so old. It's settling. Every time it
settles it's something going wrong, always something to fix.
Then when I was remodeling it the old drunks or the drinkers in the
neighborhood, they came over and they stole all of the copper piping. I
didn't know that they had taken the
piping. Then it had aluminum siding on the outside of the house, they
stripped all of the siding off the house one night. I came back and it
was just like who put the holes in the house. There was just holes
everywhere because the wood was decayed. I'm like who did
this. Nobody knew anything but all of the siding was gone. I had to go
out and get somebody to put siding on the house.
- SARAH THUESEN:
-
That must've been incredibly frustrating.
- DIANE ENGLISH:
-
It was. The more I did, the more they stole while I was in the process.
The guys that was helping me, they were stealing my tools at night. They
would come over and steal the stuff from us at night, the wood, the
saws, stuff like that. We'd buy. They'd steal them
when we'd leave and stuff. It was awful. It was terrible.
- SARAH THUESEN:
-
Was there a good bit of violence in the neighborhood at that time?
- DIANE ENGLISH:
-
They were shooting. It was nothing to see a bunch of drug dealers
standing around selling drugs all day. During the times that I would be
over here working it was awful. They would just be standing. This used
to be, this house used to be a hot spot. In fact, the police raided my
house.
- SARAH THUESEN:
-
Really?
- DIANE ENGLISH:
-
In 1998. They tried to knock my door down but I have three-ply steel. We
had to open the door. They still—. We opened the door but
they raided my house. Because the drug dealers that live in this area
happened to be one of my daughter's friends. My daughters
know all of them because they all went to school. This particular guy
comes to the house. He sits around. In fact, he has a baby by my
daughter. He used to come by. The police was after him back and forth.
The drug dealers used to live here, basically, before I moved into the
house. I was in their territory. I would be in the house after I moved
in here. They would be outside the house. I
didn't have to worry about nobody breaking in. They
didn't destroy—. They would destroy your property
by trashing it, but they wouldn't steal and they
didn't break in. Basically, they were a good source for me at
that time because it was a lot of other shooting, gun fire going on in
the neighborhood and stuff.
- SARAH THUESEN:
-
What do you mean they were a good source for you?
- DIANE ENGLISH:
-
They were, as far as making the transition from where I lived, peace and
quiet, no noise at all, to an area where everybody walked the streets
all night. It was nothing to hear gunfire. I could open this front door
and the guys would be shooting at each other right here. I could hear
the pellets hitting my fence out here. I could hear the pellets, the gun
pellets hitting my fence. I couldn't stand in here, lay in
here really, and these windows would be lit up with blue fire where they
would just be shooting right outside. I didn't have this
fence that I have now. I had to remodel because they walked that down.
It was just flat. They were running up in the yard behind
my—. I had a tree here and they would be shooting from behind
my tree. It would be caught in my cars that would be parked out here.
They would be dodging behind the car shooting at each other. It was
nothing. The police, when they showed up it was all over. This went on
not only in this—and this was one of your worst streets.
Kennon Street was off the chain.
- SARAH THUESEN:
-
How effective was the police in trying to rein in some of the
violence?
- DIANE ENGLISH:
-
At first, I didn't have no faith in the police department.
First of all when I did decided to move here, which I had to come in by
myself because my daughters wouldn't come with me. They said
they were too afraid to stay here. Basically, I was living here by
myself. At that time I didn't have any faith in the police
department or anybody really because to ride through the neighborhood
and see the broke down houses, the people walking
the street, the drug dealers just standing out broad open daylight,
shooting at each other, broad open daylight, stabbings, hair fight, you
know fighting. This is basically five minutes from your downtown
Charlotte and five minutes away from the police department. I could not
believe. How is this possible that this neighborhood got like this with
your police department within five minutes of it? I've always
felt like it was a purpose for them to let this neighborhood go down
like this for the simple reason, the same thing that they are doing
now—revitalization and take over. That's all I
could ever see. Every police officer here has to go through here or down
Davidson Street to get to the office downtown, right. You telling me all
this is going on and they didn't know. I don't
think they like me very well either. I think that's one
reason why they raided my house. I used to be inside and the drug
dealers, they were alright people. They would come here and they would
say, "Ms. English, I'm hungry." Duh. What
do you want me to do? "If I go buy some food will you cook it
for me?" Sure. Love to. It's going to cost you. I
would charge them like twenty dollars just to cook them a sandwich.
They'd say, "Well we'll give it to
you." Oh, okay then. That's my gas money. Okay.
During the same time I'm calling the police 24/7 a day.
Finally they would say, "Well Ms. English we think you in with
it because they still there. That's your property.
You've got to get them off your property."
I'm like, "Well if you can't do it, what
makes you think I can do it?" It got so bad to where as they
would come out here and they would jump the guys. They would
brutal—. It would be something brutal where they would slam
their heads on the sidewalk and bust they face and smash it in the
rocks. It got awful.
- SARAH THUESEN:
-
You saw police doing that to drug dealers?
- DIANE ENGLISH:
-
Yeah. Then I started taping them. I started taping them with the
camcorder. That really got them mad. I started making complaints into
the police department—What is It
called?—internal affairs. Then it really got nasty at that
time. I was real vicious at that time. Then I would be in here because I
would let my daughter drive my car and they would drop me off early. I
always got off at one or two o'clock in the afternoon. Nobody
would ever be out here in midday because it would be real, real hot in
the summer. They would always come in the afternoon. I would always be
inside the house already. It was like nothing moving except for me and
the TV at a hush because I'm scared to death. I've
got to listen for the gunfire. They would be out here. Then all of
sudden these police officers would show up. They would be walking around
messing with the guys, harassing the guys. They would be sitting
actually up in my back yard up against my house or all the way around
the house, wherever. Then one particular incident I found that the
officers were actually sticking drugs into these guys'
possessions.
- SARAH THUESEN:
-
Did you see this happen?
- DIANE ENGLISH:
-
Yeah, I saw that happen. Then it's when I really had to speak
out. You can't do that. If you're going to get
them you have to do it legally. I felt like a lot of stuff they were
doing was not doing it right. No, I can't help you if you not
going to do it right. I guess the officers was frustrated because there
were so many of them. To me, I was a newcomer and I was just looking in.
I couldn't see it. You had people get robbed in my back yard,
stripped naked. They get robbed in my back yard. The police department
would get here but they would be later. They would always show up much
later than what they need to. It made me feel like something is not
right. Then all of sudden nobody showing up at any time. I had a guy
that shot through my car out there one day, shooting at somebody else. I
called and nobody showed up until like seven o'clock that
night. They said it was a dispatch error. They didn't get the
report. I'm like yeah right. You were hoping that I had been
behind that shot, right? I don't know.
The officers that we have over here now are pretty good officers, but I
still say the neighborhood should have never gotten—no
neighborhood deserves to be like this one and Villa Heights and Optimist
Park. No neighborhood, not especially with a large police force like we
have here. No neighborhood this close to your downtown area should have
ever gotten this bad. The city should have stepped in. The homes that
are dilapidated or whatever, the city should've done
something years ago. What's there purpose now? All of sudden
they got all these relocation programs. They got this. They got that.
The same thing they had years ago, right? Probably had more because it
was cheaper then. Now all of sudden, the city and this Hope VI thing.
Everybody's up on Hope VI la la la. Ain't nothing
but a total rip off as far as I'm concerned. It's
just a disaster.